Middle East Initiative

Harvard Kennedy School’s Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs today announced that Sultan of Oman Professor of International Relations Tarek Masoud will serve as faculty chair of the Center’s Middle East Initiative (MEI).

What does a new social contract mean in the Jordanian context, and how would this help Jordan to overcome its persistent political and economic problems?

Taxes rise and the cost of living and austerity measures are stoking demands for Jordan's prime minister to resign.

The Psychology of Repression and Polarization in Authoritarian Regimes 

Middle East Initiative Senior Fellow Salam Fayyad discusses his career.

A new fellowship program at Harvard Kennedy School will provide tuition, health insurance, and stipends for Palestinian students in the Harvard Kennedy School’s degree programs, as well as financial aid for Palestinian participants in the school’s executive education programs.

Stephen Walt writes that Donald Trump's goal in withdrawing the United States from the JCPOA is to prevent Iran from establishing normal relations with the rest of the world.

On Sunday, Lebanese citizens will vote in national elections for the first time since 2009. These are the first elections since the passage in June 2017 of a new electoral law and the first since the 2016 Beirut municipal elections, when a grass-roots campaign won almost 40 percent of votes, challenging Lebanon’s long-standing patronage-based sectarian parties.

On May 6, Tunisian citizens will finally head to the polls for the country’s first municipal elections since its 2011 popular uprising. Voters will cast ballots in all of the country’s 24 governorates for 7,212 available council seats in 350 municipalities, including 86 new municipalities created since 2015. Delayed twice since originally planned in 2016, these elections are another milestone in Tunisia’s tumultuous ongoing transition.

Stephen Walt discusses the efforts of Germany, France, and the U.K to persuade Trump to stay in the JCPOA.